THE hottest strikers in the country at the moment are Robin Van Persie and Jamie Vardy.

No comparison to be made there you might think and indeed Arsenal’s flying Dutchman and Fleetwood’s super sniper are poles apart in pedigree and price rating.

Yet they share that unique art of composure under pressure.

They know where the net is and generally find it given a sniff.

Enough has been written about Van Persie for you not to require further enlightenment, but Vardy is a different case altogether.

Since a reported £100,000 move from FC Halifax Town to the Fylde coast earlier this season he has hit 13 goals in 13 games. I had the pleasure of commentating on the last of those 13, in Saturday’s win over Stockport County which took the Trawlermen joint top of the Blue Square Bet Premier League with Wrexham.

It was a neat dinked finish, identical to one in the first half which was wrongly chalked off by the officials, otherwise it would be 14 in 13 – an extraordinary ratio at this level of the game.

It is this statistic that has had the scouts flocking to Fleetwood’s Highbury Stadium – the number varies between 20 and 30 for a single game – and what they see is a player with pace and aggression who has the knack of timing runs to get himself into one-on-ones with the keeper on a regular basis.

Wisely Halifax have a sell-on clause from his transfer to a higher level and from what I’ve seen they’ll cash in next summer if not in January. Fleetwood need Vardy’s goals to achieve their ambition of reaching Football League status.